The story of Black Hawk Down is infamous. In October 1993 two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu, resulting in a battle that left eighteen Americans and hundreds of Somalis dead. However, this was only one day in a two-and-a-half-year UN operation, one that represented one of the most ambitious attempts at peacekeeping and nationbuilding in history.

In his new book, Beyond Black Hawk Down Professor Jonathan Carroll of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst offers the first scholarly military history of the intervention in its entirety from the successful humanitarian mission in 1992 to the final withdrawal of UN forces in 1995. Carroll dispels commonly held myths surrounding US/UN intervention and through original archival research, constructs a new interpretation of events including Somali perspectives to understand what went right and wrong in Somalia. In a period of increasing interstate and intrastate conflict, Beyond Black Hawk Down is a timely contribution to contemporary debates on nation-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian intervention and counterinsurgency.

Speaker Bio: Jonathan Carroll is an Associate Professor of Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and a former officer in the Irish Defence Forces. He holds a PhD from Texas A&M University.